There are few greater sacrifices from a woman for the sake of fashion than submitting herself to the torture of high-heels. From what I have learned they are uncomfortable, they restrict movement, and they hurt. A lot. So the question is why do women still wear them? Why do they put themselves through this torture? The short answer is because our society deems them beautiful. The long answer is much more complex.

Societies have been beautifying the suffering of women for a majority of history, from the pounds of face paint worn by the Japanese geishas, to the burquas of the Middle East, to the foot binding of ancient China; that which restricts women, prevents them from moving quickly or far, and keeps them from being able to do everything that they normally would be able to, is seen as beautiful.

High-heels are no different. A woman in high-heels cannot walk across the sidewalk if there is a grate. They cannot run or move quickly to escape an attacker. They cannot walk far or for very long without putting themselves in pain and high-heels are expected at many events. Additionally, it is expected that women take up to a few hours to prepare their make-up and hair each day before they go out in public, but the list goes on.

Tight pants, pushup bras, spanks, all I am told are very uncomfortable, yet deemed beautiful in the eyes of the western man. And all of this is without addressing body image issues and the sacrifices that result from them (That will be discussed in length in a later article). Lastly, and this is a small fix, buttons on men's shirts are designed so that it is easier for a man to dress himself, but back when the button down shirt was invented women were not believed to be capable of buttoning their own shirts so it was designed for someone else to affix them, and this trend hasn't been fixed yet.

Now this latent sexism has not only affected women. Men as well constantly make decisions based on what society perceives to be attractive without stopping to question why it is attractive. A tuxedo is widely agreed upon as the most attractive thing that a man can wear. Why? What’s so attractive about a tuxedo? It doesn’t emphasize how a man is biologically superior, it doesn’t show that his genetics should be passed down and not someone else’s, which are all the reasons why people choose a mate biologically speaking.

So what then does a tuxedo prove? It demonstrates wealth. As far as men are concerned, a button down is more attractive than a t-shirt, a vest is more attractive than just a button down, a suit is better than just a vest, and a tuxedo is better than a suit. Another trend to be noticed, the more expensive an outfit is, the more attractive it is. Well attractions to women are based on their level of discomfort, attractions to men are based on their perceived wealth, and it hopefully goes without saying that we all hoped that mindset had died in the 1950s.

Many people assume that practices such as these died out long ago and were never a part of western culture to begin with, but it was not so long ago that the corset was all the rage in women’s fashion. Tight, painful, and making it difficult for women to breath, it had everything a major fashion trend for women should have, and it was dominating the western world. We are not immune to this, nor are it an issue that only existed in the past. This absurdity lingers today and seems like it would be an easy fix.